Other countries have nationalized oil industries and they get quite wealthy when energy is expensive and profitable. We do not have such a system.
Despite a drop in its fourth-quarter earnings and collapsing oil prices, Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, still managed to set a record as the most profitable American corporation ever last year.
As oil prices rose to a record before having their steepest-ever drop, Exxon earned a $45.2 billion in 2008, up from $40.6 billion in 2007. The profit for the full-year came even as Exxon said Friday that its fourth-quarter income fell 33 percent as oil prices declined.
A $45.2 billion profit in a cratering economy? Well, a truly radical left-wing government would seize their profits and use it to help pay for pressing national needs. But, remember, we made the Communist Party effectively illegal in this country and we do not allow even the whiff of debate about such things as the people having an ownership stake in the country’s natural resources (except in Alaska, where it is seen as just fine). I’m no communist, but there is a price to pay when one side of the political spectrum is illegal and the other end is firmly entrenched in power. Whether it is the radical Jacobin-Republicans in Congress or it is Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin, the whacko right-wing has influence while the whacko left-wing is so marginalized that it doesn’t even have a face.
Those assholes at Exxon are making record profits, yet they are still resisting a proper cleanup of the mess they made in Alaska in the 70’s.
Time for the Obama admin to release Cheney’s 2001 Energy Meeting Minutes.
Meanwhile:
Schumer: bad bank estimates go up to $4 trillion:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090129/pl_nm/us_banks_bailout_schumer
And IMF and World Bank looking for more money:
What happens if IMF runs out of cash? Time to sell their gold:
http://www.freespeechzoneblog.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2600
Even that famous Marine Major General Smedley Butler, who put down a fascist coup designed to remove FDR from power, was tolerant of communists. He said our country was founded by a bunch of radicals who would have been accused of treason. He was no red himself, but gave interviews to their presses without hesitation.
We are unfortunately reaping what our grandparents sowed. They worshipped at the alter of private greed, and left us this mess, instead of choosing the communal good over individual good. I wonder if current generations will make the same mistakes?
Private greed, yes, but that was only a minority partner in the neo-fascists’ task of turning “communism” and anything that could be called socialist into the devil. It was the Christian terror of “godless atheism” as defined by Boo’s beloved Eisenhower that sealed the deal. We’ve been without a viable left ever since.
why do you say “I’m no communist?”
maybe its time we take back that word because the basic premise of it isnt such a bad idea.
if we are going to redistribute wealth i would rather see it go to poor people than already uber rich people.
and that is all we are talking about…..redistributing wealth.
what do you think of this
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/30/executive.pay/index.html
she is looking better and better to me all the time
Wanting to cap executive pay is nice.
Wanting to cap executive pay while handing the same executives trillions in taxpayer bailout money and letting them keep their jobs?
That makes you look like an ass. Right bill, shitty timing.
Part of the price of a society that worships at the alter of personal wealth accumulation. Some get much more of it than others.
right the fuck on.
g.
“…that all men are created equal…” Except that some are inherently (and I mean that quite literally) MORE equal than others.
Perhaps I’ve misread your post, Booman, but I want to take issue with the suggestion that Communists represent the whacko left end of the political spectrum.
Communism in America was so derided during the McCarthyist era and subsequently (as it represented the ideology of America’s major ‘enemies’ the USSR, China etc) that it seems impossible for anyone in the US to discuss it rationally.
But communist parties have been important and legitimate mainstream players in the democratic political systems of western Europe, the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere for the last 60-plus years.
Personally I’d see the whacko end of the spectrum being inhabited by a subsection of groups with a claimed communist ideology – the various Trotskyite factions.
All of that is less important, of course, than the basic point of your post, about state ownership. The present crisis seems to me to be a fine time to introduce public ownership of essential elements of the economy. These don’t have to become state-owned monopolies, but can operate as competitors in a mixed economy. Why should the public’s money be provided to rescue the businesses owned by a small number of individuals? Instead, the Government should buy them out and run them as a commercial proposition, with profits fed back to government and used for public policy purposes. The model has had extensive use in other parts of the world until the Reagan-Thatcher era brought rampant privatisation for ideological reasons.
It depends. If a communist party was associated with the Comintern, I’d consider calling them ‘whacko’ to be generous. But I consider liberty the highest virtue, even above general welfare, so I am not a good person to talk to if you support the actions of totalitarians assholes.
If the whacko left wing had a face, who would it be? And why can’t we get him/her on radio, for “balance”.
Public ownership of natural resources is the fundamental principle of Georgist economics. Associating it with communism is, at best, sloppy.
Whatever happen to anti-trust. I read that all refiners are slashing production to raise the price of gasoline. I can only think there is collusion among the refiners, because in a free market one of those refiners would boost production, lower their price, and grab market share. However that is not occurring.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=abIxvcR.qsQA&refer=india